In laying carpet, linoleum or other flooring materials, it is customary to use a finishing member at the intersection of the flooring material with a wall for hiding the raw edges of the flooring. Finishing members in the form of elongated flexible coves or molding strips of rubber, linoleum, polyvinylchloride or similar resilient materials, providing a vertical back portion that abuts the wall and an outwardly and downwardly extending skirt or flange portion that provides a smooth concave transition to the flooring, are well known. Examples of such molding strips are set forth in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,300,084; 3,549,471; and 3,638,374. Such moldings ordinarily come with the skirt portion that overlays the flooring either connected at the bottom of the base portion in the manner of a flexible toe (see, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 2,300,084) or connected integrally at an intermediate point of a front surface of the back portion (see, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 3,638,374).
In laying conventional thin flooring materials, such as 1/8" to 1/4" linoleum tile or sheet flooring, wallbase molding strips are often applied after the flooring so that the skirt portion presses down onto the flooring at a feathered leading edge a slight distance away from the wall. However, because later application of the base risks damaging carpet with adhesive, conventional carpet practice is to apply the wallbase molding before installation of the carpet. This necessitates either proper positioning of a bottom end skirt member above the level of the floor, or the use of the intermediate located skirt-type molding strip, so that the carpet edge can be securely and snugly tucked under the molding strip skirt. Intermediate located skirting strips are not useable for both carpeting and thinner flooring because of the variation in thickness of the materials. Carpeting requires approximately 1/2" clearance below the leading edge of the skirt and the floor under which to tuck a carpet; linoleum flooring requires only a 1/4" clearance. Accordingly, different molding strip configurations have been developed for thinner flooring and thicker flooring.